Boston, MA 09/24/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN)’s Board will formally declare the enhanced dividend at a regular meeting next month. The $52 billion semiconductor company boosted its quarterly dividend by 13%, such that it will pay out $0.34 per share up from $30 per share, starting November. The increase in dividend followed various improvements in the business such as improved margins and earnings in the recent quarters. Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN) is struggling with the challenges in the smartphone chip market where competitors such as Qualcomm and in-house designers are not leaving it space to breathe. As such, the company is gradually looking into the emerging chip markets such as processors for cars and industrial machines. Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN) saw its revenue up 8% to $3.29 billion in its most recent quarter, which was also better than the estimate of $3.27 billion.
Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI)‘s nearly 2% downfall Tuesday had much to do with the cancellation of its next-generation game under MMORPG. The company’s executives said that the follow-up game on World of Warcraft failed to come together as was expected, and they had to pull plugs on it. They cited that the game, Titan, had some cool things, but the developer couldn’t push it through because of the lack of enough “passion” or “fun” for it. Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) is a $16 billion global publisher of online games. It faces competition in the space, especially from new entrants. Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) had revenue of $658 million in its most recent quarter, ahead of $607.75 million that analysts estimated. Revenue jumped up 8.2% from the previous year.
Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P)’s battle for the control of the eardrums is getting tough, if not tougher. Some analysts cite that Pandora might be in for higher content cost than anticipated. Pandora (NYSE:P) already has content acquisition as its highest single quarterly expense at $111.6 million in the most recent quarter. However, future content negotiations are likely, and that means possibly higher costs of the streaming music providers. Competition from Apple Inc. (AAPL), Spotify, Prime Music and iHeartRadio, doesn’t make things any better for Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P). The $5.26 billion company currently boasts more than 76.4 million active users. Analysts at Topeka Capital launched coverage of the stock with a “hold” rating and issued $30 target price on it.
